Champion trainer John Size went back to the drawing board and all the way back to Morphettville racetrack in Adelaide, Australia, to find the key that finally turned the engine of Upbeat yesterday in unusual circumstances.
A winner by 71/2 lengths in Adelaide at his only Australian start, Upbeat had been a serious disappointment in six Hong Kong outings as he dropped like a stone from Class Three into yesterday's Class Four sprint.
'I thought I'd given the horse a number of good opportunities to perform, but he just hasn't concentrated in his races at all and his latest run was very disappointing. I know he was wide there but he didn't switch on at all,' Size said yesterday.
'He did seem to be better than he was showing, and I knew he'd worn blinkers in Adelaide the day he won, so I decided we had better go back to them. That was the only thing that was different with him today, but it has done the trick.'
Unusually, though, Upbeat was passed to run in the 'blinkers first time' at Sha Tin yesterday without having to first perform wearing them for the local stewards and he may in fact have been the first horse to win here under such circumstances.
'Normally a horse would need to pass with blinkers in a barrier trial or a stalls test or in some way here in front of the stewards, that is true,' chief steward Jamie Stier confirmed after racing.
